


The First Boggart

by femellerklem



Series: Tomorrow You'll be On Your Own and I'll be Right Behind You [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Harry is a Good Dad, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, sibling antics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-13 06:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21489928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femellerklem/pseuds/femellerklem
Summary: The Potters' trip to the countryside doesn't go exactly as planned. Especially not for Albus.
Relationships: Albus Severus Potter & Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Series: Tomorrow You'll be On Your Own and I'll be Right Behind You [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1548958
Comments: 6
Kudos: 53





	The First Boggart

They were huddled under a blanket fort, the adult conversation inaudible in the background, with nothing but the tip of Teddy’s wand to give them light as they listened with rapt attention to his low and quiet voice.

“And then, the two boys slowly walked up the stairs and opened the creaking door. The room was dark, and they could hear a slow tapping on the window. It was so dark, they couldn’t even see their hands in front of their faces, but they heard the tapping get louder, and louder, and louder, when suddenly-“

“DEMENTOR!” shouted James as he grabbed Al from behind. Al let out a shout and jumped up, clumsily falling onto Teddy in the process. In the light of Teddy’s wand, he could see Rose, Lily, and James sniggering at him. 

“It’s not funny!” he said.

“Yeah it was,” James grinned. Albus just glared at him. 

“You can’t do that and expect me not to jump.”

“I wouldn’t have jumped,” said Lily. 

Rose rolled her eyes. “Can we just finish the story now?”

“For sure,” said Teddy. “And James, don’t do that again. You ruined the suspense. And it wasn’t even supposed to be a dementor.”

“It’s not my fault Al’s such a scaredy-cat-“

“Shut it, James,” said Teddy, pulling Al more securely onto his lap and wrapping an arm around him. “Now, where were we?”

“The tapping!” said Rose.

“Right, the tapping. The tapping was getting louder, and louder, and louder…”

* * *

“I still don’t think a mummy is very scary,” said James in the car the next day. “It’s just an undead person.”

“Undead people are scary,” said Harry.

“No they’re not. Your story was lame, Teddy,” said James.

“Lily’s four,” said Teddy from the front seat. “It wasn’t getting any more gruesome than that.”

James looked over to where his sister’s head lolled against the side of her car seat.

“Well, she’s asleep now, so why can’t you tell a better story? We have time before we get to the lodge. Maybe you could tell one with a dementor, or a chimera, or an invisible severed hand that strangles people to death in their sleep-“

“Or we could just have quiet,” said Albus.

“I think that’s an excellent idea, Al,” said Harry. 

James groaned and slumped in his seat. “But quiet is boring.”

“Like undead mummies?” asked Teddy.

“Yes!”

Albus saw Teddy smirk at his dad, who rolled his eyes.

“The lodge is going to be filled with undead mummies, James, so you’d better get used to it,” he said.

James groaned again and sank down in his seat. “You’re not funny, Dad. We’re supposed to be on holiday. It’s not supposed to be boring.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to find a way to make it more exciting,” said Harry.

James was quiet for a second, before breaking out in a grin. “Then I’m going to find a dementor!” he said.

Harry and Teddy groaned, and Albus deliberately turned away from his brother to watch the trees outside his window grow taller and denser.

* * *

“Well it’s about time,” said Ron as they arrived.

Harry rolled his eyes as he lifted an awake but still drowsy Lily out of her car seat. “I had twice the kids to wrangle. Triple if you count James.”

“Hey!” said James as he hugged his uncle. Harry merely chuckled and ruffled his hair.

“Where’s Mum?” asked James. “She was supposed to meet us here too.”

“Just got an owl saying that the match is still going on and might not be done until after your bedtime,” said Ron. 

“Again?” asked Harry. “I swear the same thing happened the last time she covered the Arrows-“

“Uncle Harry! Lily, James, Al, Teddy!” cried Rose as she ran to greet them. “I haven’t seen you since yesterday! And guess what!”

“What?” Harry gasped, kneeling down to Rose’s height as far as he could with Lily in his arms and giving her a one-armed squeeze.

“We already picked the rooms out!” said Rose. “The house is really big so there’s lots of them. You and Auntie Ginny have the big room upstairs, Lily and I are in the room with the big window, James and Teddy are next to the bathroom, Al’s at the end of the hall, and Mummy and Daddy are going to be in the downstairs room with Hugo.”

“And you planned this all yourself, Rosie?” asked Harry.

“Uh huh. Except I didn’t think Al should be alone, but then Aunt Ginny said yesterday that Al and James shouldn’t share because they’d just argue and James can’t be by himself because he’d just blow something up or something- which I agree with, by the way- and I said I didn’t think Al should be all by himself either but Hugo’s still too little to sleep without Mum and Daddy.”

She paused to take a deep breath, but before she could start talking again, Hermione spoke up.  
“Are you going to be okay by yourself, Al?” she asked. “Your parents will be right next door to you if something happens or if you get scared.”

Albus quickly glanced over at James.

“I won’t be scared,” he said. “I can sleep by myself.”

“Excellent,” said Hermione as Ron pulled Albus into a hug. “You all can just leave your things in your rooms now, and we can unpack after dinner.”

“Dad’s making hamburgers!” said Rose. “Come on, I can show you all your rooms!”

The second floor of the lodge was a lot bigger than Al expected, but still cozy, in a way. With Ron’s cooking and Harry and Hermione talking and Teddy playing with a now-awake Lily and James being James, noise was already everywhere by the time Albus got to his room. It was small but cozy, with dark wood floors, a window looking out over rolling hills, and a great big armoire in the corner. Albus barely had time to drop his things off before Uncle Ron was calling them all for dinner, so he set his suitcase on the bed and ran downstairs, overtaking James in the process and smirking at him all throughout the meal.

By the time Albus, James, and Rose had to go to bed, it was dark out and James had already fallen asleep on Teddy’s shoulder at least three times. He denied it every time, but was still the first one upstairs. Albus and Rose followed, trying to be quiet so as not to wake Lily and Hugo.

By the time Albus got to his room, there was almost no noise coming from the rest of the house except for the faint sound of the grownups and Teddy talking downstairs. He took out his pajamas and went to put the rest of his clothes in the armoire, when he heard a scratching sound. Assuming it to be some kind of animal outside, he didn’t think anything of it as he changed into his pajamas. But then, after a few moments, the noise grew louder. A sharp tapping, just like in Teddy’s story.

And it was coming from the armoire.

“James!” Albus groaned. “Get out and go to your own room.”

But the armoire door didn’t move.

“It’s not funny James,” said Albus, approaching the armoire and reaching for the handle with only slightly trembling hands. “If you don’t leave me alone right now, I’ll tell Dad that-“

The door opened, and Albus found himself immediately tripping over his own feet and falling as he backed away, chilled to the bone, gazing up in horror at the faceless shadowy figure above him as its breath rattled and shuddered in its hood like the frozen wind in the air. 

Albus scrambled back as fast as he could along the floor, transfixed, and calling for his father, though he couldn’t quite hear his own voice.

Within seconds, his bedroom door burst open, and he heard his father’s voice yell out a funny word that he couldn’t quite make out, and there was a flash of brilliant light, and then the rattling breath was gone and Albus realized his eyes were watering. 

He felt himself being lifted by his father’s arms and he buried his face in his chest as his father sat on the bed and held him close.

“It’s okay, you’re okay now,” he murmured. “It was just a boggart. Just a boggart. Nothing to be afraid of now. I’m here.”

But Albus didn’t even want to look up as he heard a commotion outside the room.

“What happened?” he heard James ask, and he was satisfied to note that his brother’s voice sounded at least somewhat distressed. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing you need to worry about,” said Harry. “Everything’s fine now.”

“What was it?” asked Rose, her voice unusually high. “What was in Al’s room?”

“Just a boggart, but it’s gone now,” said Harry.

“What?!” cried James. “No fair! Can we switch rooms, then? Please please _please?_”

“No,” said Harry firmly. “Now go back to bed. There’s nothing else to see here.”

“But I-“

“Get back to bed, James,” said Teddy in a bored voice.

But as James and Teddy left, Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione took their place and continued to talk. Albus tried to burrow his face even further into his father’s shirt, determined not to let them see the tears he was sure were already falling.

“I just put Lily back to bed, but Harry! Harry, I’m so sorry, I had no idea; I didn’t even think to check inside the closets and Hugo was having a tantrum just before you got here so I didn’t hear anything at all and there shouldn’t have been anything wrong in the first place but I really should have checked anyway and-“

“It’s fine, Hermione,” said Albus’s dad. “He’ll be just fine in a bit. Right Al?”

Albus nodded ever so slightly. 

Uncle Ron said something about speaking to the property manager and Aunt Hermione said she was going to check on Hugo, and when they were gone, Harry gently tilted Albus’s face upward to look at him, his green eyes soft with concern.

“You’re shaking like a leaf,” he said gently. “Do you want some hot chocolate?”

Albus nodded and wiped at his eyes. 

Then, much to his surprise, his father picked him up and carried him all the way downstairs, where he set him down on the sofa and wrapped a blanket around him. At six, Albus was getting a bit too big to be carried, but he found he didn’t mind at all. 

His dad sat on the sofa next to him as he brought out the hot chocolate, and Albus curled up against him as he drank. The warmth seemed to fill his entire body, and he felt more relaxed yet more awake all at once. For a few moments, it was just them and the quiet— Albus under the blanket with his hot chocolate, leaning against his father, who put his arm around him and held him close, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Yeah,” said Albus. “It was just James messing up Teddy’s story yesterday and trying to scare me that made me think about dementors. Otherwise I might not have been scared.”

“Well, I’ll be having words with James,” said Harry. “But you know, you were really brave, and you did exactly what you were supposed to do.”

“I did?”

“Of course. You called for help.”

“But that’s not very brave,” Albus said, curling away to face the other end of the couch.

“Sure it is,” said his dad. “You saw a threat, obviously didn’t have a wand, so you called for help. It’s what I do all the time at work.”

“Really?”

“Really. Whenever I get into a tricky situation, the first thing I do is call for backup.”

“Yeah, but your job is actually dangerous,” grumbled Al, pulling the blanket more tightly around him.

His father looked away for a minute, then grinned.

“Do you know what happened to me the first time I met a dementor?”

“What?”

“I fainted. Knocked out cold; didn’t even put up a fight.”

Albus’s mouth twitched. “Yeah, but that’s still a real dementor, not a boggart.”

Harry didn’t stop grinning. “Do you know what happened the first time I met a boggart dementor?”

“What?”

“I fainted again.”

Albus descended into giggles, imagining his dad’s eyes going wide as he fell comically to the floor, just like the illustrations in his picture books. His father smiled back at him.

“So,” he said, “you’re already better at facing boggart-dementors than me.”

Albus put his mug down and relaxed back into his dad’s arms.

“Daddy?” he asked.

“Hm?”

“Are real dementors really that noisy?”

Harry laughed and kissed Albus again.

“Well, they do have that weird rattley breath, so I suppose so.”

“Because I was just thinking that in real life, they probably wouldn’t be very good at sneaking up on people. Especially if they already make everything sad and cold.”

His dad chuckled again. “You’re not wrong about that. Now, do you-“

But just then, they heard the sound of keys turning in the lock on the front door. 

“That’s probably your mother,” said Harry as he went to open the door.

Albus heard the unmistakable sound of a kiss and his mother’s voice as his father murmured something to her, but he was so tired that his eyes were halfway closed when his parents reentered the living room. 

“Hello, sweetheart,” said his mother as she bent down to kiss his forehead. “I hear you had an exciting night.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Do you want to sleep in our bed with us for tonight?” she asked. 

Albus shook his head immediately. He didn’t need another reason for James to make fun of him.

“Can I just sleep down here?” he asked. “Uncle Ron and Aunt Hermione and Hugo are right down the hall, and I don’t really want to sleep in my room tonight. Maybe tomorrow night.”

His parents glanced at each other, and then his mum nodded. 

“Of course you can, love. We’ll be right upstairs.”

“Just come get us or Ron and Hermione if you need anything, alright?” said his dad.

“Okay. And also-“ his voice became a whisper as he fiddled with his blanket- “Can you both stay until I’m asleep?”

“Of course we can,” said his mum. “I’ll just go put my things away and check on James and Lily and Teddy, and then I’ll be right back.”

But before she left, she and Harry both tucked him in on the couch and kissed his forehead. Albus closed his eyes as he felt his father shift down to the end of the couch and rest a hand on his calf, rubbing it gently every so often. He felt his mother return and kiss his forehead one last time, running a hand over his hair. He fell asleep to the soft whispering of the wind outside and the low, even sounds of his parents’ breathing, warm and content and filled with hot chocolate that James didn’t get to have.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a comment if you enjoyed the story; I always appreciate them!
> 
> (You can also find me on Tumblr @femellerklem)


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